FICTIONAL EMERGENCY BROADCAST // SHELTER JHS // TRANSMISSION REPEATING
IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THERE IS STILL SOMEBODY OUT THERE.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
The world went quiet. I kept writing.
Monsters look like us.
These days, I’d settle for one who knows how to turn a page.
RECOVERED MATERIAL: FIVE PUBLISHED NOVELS. PLEASE DO NOT USE AS KINDLING.
OPEN CHANNEL / PLEASE ANSWER
Hello? Anybody? Please Don’t Close This.
My name is James H. Summers. I’m transmitting from a shelter that smells like damp concrete, cold coffee, and a very poor long-term decision. The last station went off the air halfway through a weather report. I keep wondering what the forecast was. Probably unpleasant.
I thought there would be more noise when everything ended. Sirens. Speeches. Somebody explaining what happened. Mostly there was a refrigerator stopping, a dog barking somewhere down the road, and then a silence so complete I could hear the battery clock over the door. I took the battery out. Needed it for this.
If you’re alive, I have books. If you’re undead, I still have books. I’m prepared to be remarkably flexible about my readership. All I ask is that you leave enough of your fingers attached to operate the links.
Please. Before the signal drops. Let me show you what I made while there was still a world to make it for.
UPLINK 01 / THE WEBSITE IS STILL HERE
FIVE ROUTES THROUGH WHAT REMAINS
I Left the Doors Open for You.
The digital ones. The shelter door has a filing cabinet against it.
ROUTE 01 / BEFORE THE SILENCE
Far From Ordinary
I used to write, design web pages, play games, see friends, and complain about yard work. Do you remember yard work? Grass being the thing outside that worried you? This page holds some of that life: the interests, routines, and odd little details that fed the writing. Please take a look. Somebody ought to remember us doing ordinary things.
ROUTE 02 / SOMETHING COMES AFTER
Down The Road
I’m still having trouble with the word “after.” After what? After everybody? Bloody Seconds follows second chances, memory, return, and the consequences people carry forward. There are paths into Second Chances and Hemoglobin Insecure. Follow one. I need somebody besides me to believe a story can keep going.
ROUTE 03 / A HUMAN VOICE
About Me
If your room has been quiet too long, come hear me talk. The DarkFictionAuth channel has introductions, interviews, book videos, and conversations about the work. Yes, I was trying to get these stories onto a screen before the screens started going dark. Play something. Let there be another voice in the shelter for a while.
ROUTE 04 / SALVAGE WHAT YOU CAN
Well Rounded
Extras is where I kept the things that made the world around the books feel bigger: Peggy Landers, reflections, strange fragments, ways to participate, even a little fun. I’m keeping the fun. We’ve lost enough. Go rummage through it. You might find something to talk about when the people in your shelter run out of complaints about beans.
ROUTE 05 / YES, I’M STILL ASKING
Further Clarification
If an agent, producer, interviewer, or possible collaborator survived, would somebody please slide this page under their blast door? It explains what I’m looking for and how to approach me about the work. I realize the industry may currently consist of three people and a generator. I would very much like to meet those three people.
HANDWRITTEN BESIDE THE TRANSMITTER
I heard something outside.
I asked if it had read First Responder.
It scratched the door.
I’m counting that as interest.
UPLINK 02 / UNSEALED RECORDS
The World Ended. You Can Still Spoil the Books.
I saved the revelations, the behind-the-story material, the things you might want to know after reading. They’re over in Spoiled. Please be certain you want to look. Even now, with the skyline missing, I’d hate to ruin a good surprise for you.
PERSONAL REQUEST / PLEASE KEEP READING
I Need These Stories to Reach Somebody.
Read James H. Summers because there are still people inside these books. Complicated people. Frightened people. People who want something badly enough to make a terrible choice and then have to face what follows. I wrote about control, identity, survival, and the danger that gets close enough to seem familiar. If you have spent all day listening at a locked door, perhaps you could use a different room to stand in for a while. Let me give you one. Let me give you voices, faces, a question that pulls you into the next chapter. Please let something I wrote reach beyond these concrete walls.
Bereft Reality, Picking Murphys, First Responder, Site 123, and They Heinous are still here. Choose whichever premise catches your attention. There’s atmosphere to settle into, trouble to follow, and somebody else’s decisions to worry about while your dinner warms over that suspicious little flame. I can’t promise you’ll forget what’s outside. I can offer you a story worth bringing inside. Alive, undead, undecided—if you can still follow a sentence, I would be grateful for the company.
RELAY THIS TRANSMISSION
Tell the Next Shelter.
If a book of mine stays with you, please tell somebody. Share the website while your connection holds. Recommend a title to the person across the room. Leave an honest review if there’s still somewhere to leave one. Tell the next shelter, the next settlement, the remarkably attentive figure shuffling past the window. Your recommendation could bring these stories to a reader I’ll never reach from here. I am still trying to get the word out, even with no idea how much world is left to receive it. If this transmission found you, help it find one more person.
I used to mean that figuratively. The view has complicated things.
LAST REQUEST BEFORE I TRY THE ANTENNA AGAIN
WELL, WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE TO DO, STUCK INDOORS, TRYING TO SURVIVE – READ JAMES H. SUMMERS –
You’ve counted the cans. You’ve checked the lock. You’ve had the same argument about the last clean spoon three times. The thing in the stairwell isn’t taking questions, and watching the ceiling hasn’t produced much of a plot.
Open a book. Please. Let me keep you company until morning. If morning is still how we’re measuring things.
ALL RIGHT, JAMES. SHOW ME THE BOOKS.
And if you hear me broadcasting this again tomorrow, don’t be angry. I still haven’t heard back. I’m going to keep trying.
JAMES H. SUMMERS // STILL HERE // STILL WRITING
…hello?